Aesthetic expropriation: balustrades, entablatures, and tyranny

Wednesday

Jan 2, 2013 at 12:01 AM

The address is 125 Salem St., in Thomasville. On that lot sits what an architectural historian would refer to as an "airplane bungalow." This showplace was erected in 1924 by one L.A. Kress, an enterprising Lithuanian Jew who crossed the pond over a century ago.

Barney W. Hill

The address is 125 Salem St., in Thomasville. On that lot sits what an architectural historian would refer to as an "airplane bungalow." This showplace was erected in 1924 by one L.A. Kress, an enterprising Lithuanian Jew who crossed the pond over a century ago.By the time Doug Phillips took possession of 125 Salem St., the glory days of Kress were ancient history, and the airplane bungalow wasn't flying so high anymore. But Phillips resolved to do the best he could with what he had. He covered the unsightly brickwork with a beige Sherwin-Williams product. The neighbors were pleased. The Thomasville Historic Preservation Commission wasn't.This tale will continue in the 17th paragraph of this column.Final Draft 1 (the ninth in a series of nine) of the Lexington Historic Preservation Commission's proposed Historic District Design Guidelines consists of 43 pages, not counting the appendices. The first 10 1/3 pages are filled with introductory information. The last 5 2/3 pages offer a grab bag of topics.The remaining 27 pages constitute the heart of the document: a manual for proper conduct within the historic district. There are four sets of specific numbered instructions for each of 21 categories of materials, structures or design.What can be wrong with design guidelines that are so superbly organized? What can be — and is — wrong with the design guidelines is that they aren't guidelines.Section 17.1.7 of the Design Guidelines explains that, upon adoption, the design guidelines will be incorporated as chapter 17 of the City of Lexington Land Use Ordinance, more commonly known as the Lexington zoning ordinance.Any violation of the new chapter 17, like any violation of the existing chapters of the zoning ordinance, will subject the violator to the arsenal of civil and criminal penalties lovingly cataloged in section 17.6.3.The word "guideline" implies the possibility of choice. A guideline is a friendly invitation from a proponent for me to join him in his cause. If he tries to facilitate my conversion by twisting my arm, the "guideline" ceases to be a guideline.Civil and criminal penalties are noted for their propensity to twist arms. The design guidelines are really design mandates.Mandates and qualifiers are as compatible as oil and water, but in the pages that may be added to the zoning ordinance, qualifiers abound: "if so," "as needed," "only when necessary," to name a few. It is troubling that the text provides the members of the historic preservation commission no criteria on which to base the judgment calls.Similarly lacking are the criteria to resolve a host of other ambiguities. What is a "recognized" preservation repair method in sections 17.2.2.1.7 and 17.2.6.1.6? What is an "established" contemporary material in sections 17.2.5.3.8, 17.2.15.3.2 and 17.2.18.4.5? How are we to know whether the documentation discussed in sections 17.2.2.3.2, 17.2.3.3.2, 17.2.5.2.2 and 17.2.6.3.2.a is "accurate"?The factor that will distinguish the new chapter 17 from the existing chapters of the zoning ordinance is the inherent subjectivity of the subject matter. Zoning ordinances usually are limited to the mundane and measurable: setbacks, variances, nonconformities, that sort of thing.But preferences in style, color and texture are as individual as preferences in theology. A government-imposed neighborhood aesthetic is akin to an act of Congress forcing all Americans to become Baptists.See the first sentence of the second paragraph of section 17.1.6, regarding certificates of appropriateness: "Routine maintenance does not require a COA, nor does repainting the exterior." There is, in that short sentence much mischief.The level of maintenance demanded in the 27 pages of specific instructions is far above what most people would consider routine. This new affirmative duty will be tantamount to a tax.Repainting the exterior of a house does not require a COA, but painting masonry surfaces that never have been painted is verboten. See section 17.2.3.2.2. It was the almost identically worded Thomasville provision that brought down the wrath of the Thomasville commission upon the head of Phillips.Phillips was aware that 125 Salem St. was in the historic district. He had conferred with the consultant to the commission when he was contemplating relocating his driveway. But it never occurred to him to ask about painting the outside of his house. It never occurred to him because of where he grew up. He grew up in a Thomasville innocent of Orwellian concepts like aesthetic coercion. Phillips grew up in Thomasville, not in Havana or Pyongyang.See the sentence of the Lexington proposal that would be most at home in Havana or Pyongyang. That would be the sentence that follows section 17.4.1.9. The sentence reads: "A COA may delay demolition for up to 365 days in order to allow the Commission adequate time to explore alternatives."If I cannot tear my house down, when I want to tear my house down, without begging the permission of the government, in what sense do I own my house?The irony is that if government had claimed the powers it claims today before Kress and others like him arrived on our shores, much of what the preservationists want to preserve today never would have been created.I am seized with a sudden urge to go out and paint some unpainted masonry.Barney W. Hill announces that the stately, shingled dwelling at 8 School St., built in 1921, will be on the market if the Thomasville Historic Preservation Commission ever targets School Street for a local historic district.